Scalmer, Sean

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Scalmer, Sean

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Sydney, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—History Department, Rm. 301 W., John Hedley Bldg., University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, research fellow, 1998-2004, lecturer, 2004-06; University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, faculty member, 2007—.

WRITINGS:

Dissent Events: Protest, the Media, and the Political Gimmick in Australia, University of New South Wales Press (Kensington, New South Wales, Australia), 2002.

(With Sarah Maddison) Activist Wisdom: Practical Knowledge and Creative Tension in Social Movements, University of New South Wales Press (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 2006.

(Editor, with Stuart Macintyre) What If? Australian History as It Might Have Been, Melbourne University Publishing (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2006.

The Little History of Australian Unionism, Vulgar Press (Carlton North, Victoria, Australia), 2006.

Contributor to scholarly journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Activist Wisdom: Practical Knowledge and Creative Tension in Social Movements, Sean Scalmer and Sarah Maddison explore the motivations and influence of the activist community in Australia. By the early 2000s the activist agendas there had expanded beyond labor rights to include such issues as indigenous rights, women's rights, refugee and immigrant rights, environmental protection, and peace and justice. Drawing on interviews with nineteen activists, including Vince Caughley of the International Socialist Party, Mick Dodson and Jackie Huggins of the indigenous rights movement, and Happy Ho and Somali Cerise of the gay and lesbian movement, Scalmer and Maddison examine the tensions that inform activism and discuss the ways in which these tensions affect subsequent organizing. They also refer briefly to various social theorists, including Tom Nairn, Eric Hobsbawm, Alberto Melucci, Sidney Tarrow, Emmanuel Castells, and Sigmund Freud. But as Jenny McAllister pointed out in the Australian Reviewof Public Affairs, the book is "largely unconcerned with the political aspirations that provoke activism," focusing instead on "the ideological questions underpinning the practice of organizing for activist movements."

The "eclectic sources and perspectives" in the book, added McAllister, "offer new insights to the challenges in bringing people together to generate transformative political change." The critic also enjoyed the book's "playful treatment of the academic literature in this area," noting that this element, combined with the engaging humor of the interviewees, combine in an "entertaining tour through some complex material that's great for the lay reader." Reviewing Activist Wisdom in Arena Magazine, Damian Grenfell observed that one of the book's "most valuable aspects … is that it seeks to capture and reflect on the experience of activists, a practice that is not necessarily as strong a tradition in Australian social movements as one may hope." At the same time, however, the critic pointed out that Scalmer and Maddison "make the mistake of narrowly defining activism solely as attempts at political campaigning. A more useful way of thinking about activism is how you engage across a series of life-fields: from what you buy, eat, wear, to how you speak and your social networks—and for academics, the content and manner of teaching and researching. Activism is something that is not outside of other activities, but is integral to them, academia included."

Scalmer has also written The Little History of Australian Unionism and Dissent Events: Protest, the Media, and the Political Gimmick in Australia, which explores the idea of political protests as a type of theater. As Dissent Events shows, such actions are aimed at gaining media attention and, ultimately, government action, and the stakes keep escalating as the public grows inured to spectacles that were once shocking. Describing the book in a History Cooperative Web site review, Eric Freedman observed that "Scalmer asks the question ‘what can protesters do?’ now that the public accepts the ‘staging of demands’ as a regular aspect of democracy, as long as there is no violence." If recent events are indicative of a trend, Freedman wrote, protesters will ratchet up the drama and violence of their activities.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Arena Magazine, February 1, 2006, Damian Grenfell, "On Knowledge, Agency and Activism in Australia," p. 54.

Australian Journal of Political Science, November, 2003, Rae Wear, review of Dissent Events: Protest, the Media, and the Political Gimmick in Australia, p. 564; September, 2006, David West, review of Activist Wisdom: Practical Knowledge and Creative Tension in Social Movements, p. 492.

Australian Review of Public Affairs, June 5, 2006, Jenny McAllister, "Coalitions for Change: Building Bridges in Howard's Australia."

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, May, 2003, A.J. Ward, review of Dissent Events, p. 1619.

Journal of Sociology, June, 2007, Cheryl Lange, review of Activist Wisdom, p. 213.

Overland, summer, 2006, "Virtual History"; winter, 2006, "Progressivism and Its Enemies."